(not) eating animals

Disclaimer: I am not, nor ever will be, a full vegan. Or even vegetarian. These are just my thoughts about eating animals.

I don't know exactly when it happened, but somewhere in the recent past I realized I am an animal lover. This was before I got my kittens, by the way. But seriously. I didn't ever consider myself an animal lover. Other than cats and pictures of cute rabbits I was pretty indifferent. But more than ever I have found myself liking to spend time with animals, and not just pets like cats and dogs. I really like rabbits, and I desperately want a little goat to take care of. I'm not kidding.

As part of my quest to eat healthier, I have cut out a lot of meat from my diet. Not that I think eating meat is completely unhealthy, but less of it is generally a good idea. Don't worry, I still get my protein. Oddly enough, protein is available in many plants. Like spinach and kale! Anyway.

I tend to think too long and hard about various subjects. One of those things that I thought too long and hard about was eating meat. I don't believe it is wrong to eat meat; God gave us this whole earth and everything on it. But the way that animals are manufactured into meat just bothers me. It may seem contradictory, but I'd rather the meat on my table was raised in a humane way. Seems healthier, for one thing.

For my own sanity, I have chosen to eat less meat. I am a compassionate person, and that compassion goes to animals, as well. In recent years I have had a harder time eating a burger or steak or piece of chicken without visualizing the animal it came from. You're probably thinking, That's just stupid. Animals don't know they're being slaughtered. Etc, etc. And maybe it is crazy, or stupid. But it seems to me that if we all chose to eat a little less meat, fewer animals would need to be bred for slaughter and chopped up on a daily basis.

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I think another problem I have with factory meat is that you don't know what the animal is eating. (It's probably usually GMO corn. More on that in another post...) And then you're putting that into your body. Oh dear. It's a dream of mine to find a local farmer from whom we can purchase meat that is grass-fed, not pumped with hormones, and raised humanely. That doesn't make me feel any better about the actual act of eating the creatures, but maybe my sanity will be consoled by knowing exactly where the meat came from and what it ate.

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That being said, I hope you will forgive my weird tendencies to sound like a crazy-hippie-vegan-treehugger. I think I always had "hippie" tendencies...they just manifested themselves rather quickly and all at once. But I take very seriously the command that God gave in Genesis to take care of the earth, and if I have to sound crazy, so be it.